Educating Physicians in Home Health Care

HOME health care promises to play an increasingly central role in the future provision of health care as hospital care becomes restricted to acute "intensive care." Paradoxically, physicians have dramatically decreased their involvement in home health care in recent decades. This has resulted in a serious lack of medical leadership and participation at a time when home health care is experiencing an important renaissance. The recognition of this growing gap between actual physician participation in home health care and what might be considered optimal or even adequate physician involvement has prompted the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Scientific Affairs and the AMA Council on Medical Education to recommend that training in the principles and practice of home health care be incorporated into the undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education of physicians. BACKGROUND The field of home health care has experienced rapid growth in the past decade (Health Care Financing Administration